Officers who used pepper spray and a Taser to remove a man from a store bathroom found out only later he was deaf and mentally disabled and didn't understand they wanted him to open the door, police said Tuesday.

A spokesman for the Mobile Police Department said the officers' actions were justified because the man was armed with a potential weapon — an umbrella.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"Oh my GAWD; he has an UMBRELLA! RUN!! RUN!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!"

DEBKAfile's military sources report that the Nevada exercise, which ends July 24, is not related to any Israeli plans for striking Iran's nuclear facilities except from affording its air crews valuable experience in flight and combat over broad spaces.

"...but it’s good to have an outpost of the Council right here down the street from the State Department. We get a lot of advice from the Council, so this will mean I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future."

“Thank you for that wonderful tribute to Henry Kissinger yesterday. Congratulations. As the most recent National Security Advisor of the United States, I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger, filtered down through Generaal [sic] Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger, who is also here. We have a chain of command in the National Security Council that exists today.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft retire from government service years ago? Hmmmmm?

U.S. officials "firmly believe" that al-Qaida leaders who planned and carried out the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are hiding in Pakistan near its border with Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.

President Jimmy Carter wrote that the Red Cross, Amnesty International and the Pentagon "have gathered substantial testimony of torture of children, confirmed by soldiers who witnessed or participated in the abuse." In "Our Endangered Values" Carter said that the Red Cross found after visiting six U.S. prisons "107 detainees under eighteen, some as young as eight years old." And reporter Hersh, (who broke the Abu Ghraib torture scandal,) reported 800-900 Pakistani boys aged 13 to 15 in custody.

Webmaster's Commentary:

So, the "land of the free and the home of the brave" has been torturing......CHILDREN?!?!?!?

If that doesn't get you angry, and demonstrate, concretely, the moral depths to which this country has fallen, I'm sorry: you're just not alive. You may have the appearance of being alive, and going about your daily routine, but you cannot possibly count yourself a moral human being if you are not outraged by this.

There needs to be an investigation, starting at the rotting top of the head of this government, and everyone who signed off on any torture should be persecuted to the fullest extent allowable by law.

If this country is to ever regain any kind of moral reputation, both at home and abroad, it should be made clear by these investigations and subsequent prosecutions, that this country will never, ever use torture again, particularly against children, which is an absolute crime against humanity.

According to a story in Friday’s New York Times, Vice-President Cheney advocated in 2002 for the Bush administration to send military troops to Buffalo to arrest the so-called Lackawanna Six as enemy combatants.

This would have violated both Fourth Amendment guarantees against search and seizure without probable cause and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which makes it illegal to use the military for law enforcement.

Webmaster's Commentary:

John Yoo will be remembered as a person who did not believe in upholding and defending the Constitution, but rather torturing the Constitution and Bill of Rights into whatever malleable formats his masters in the white house wanted.

He shall be remembered as one of the most amoral and reprehensible characters to have ever worked in the Justice department.

On Monday, an Obama administration task force announced it would delay for six months release of a report that was to outline plans for the prosecution of inmates at its GuantnamoBay prison camp and future prisoners seized in the "war on terror." In its stead came an interim report and a White House press briefing that together indicate President Barack Obama is likely to rely on military tribunals or indefinite detention without trial in cases where evidences against "terror suspects" is scant or tainted by torture.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Indefinite detention?!?

That's what we normally equate with third-world banana republics whose "rule of law" is continually observed in the breach of that law, and not the observation of it.

Indefinite detention is unconstitutional, and a moral outrage against the principals on which this country was founded, as stated in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

We cannot, as a country, talk about human rights, human dignity, and the rule of law if we cannot observe these values in the functioning of our government.

If these recommendations go forward, the US will not longer be a country under the rule of law: it will have devolved into a country under the rule of men, and that puts this republic in an horrifically deep jeopardy from which it may never recover.

Adding to its six-month record of extending the Bush administration’s attacks on democratic rights, the Obama administration is now blocking efforts by human rights investigators from the United Nations to interview detainees at the GuantánamoBay prison.

According to a report Thursday in the Washington Post, two UN human rights researchers, Martin Scheinin and Manfred Nowak, have sought to visit Guantánamo and been turned down. In a particularly cynical twist, US officials claimed that they were too busy implementing Obama’s much publicized order to close down Guantánamo by next January to answer questions about the ongoing abuse of prisoners still held in the facility.

The Obama administration has declined requests from U.N. human rights investigators for information on secret prisons and for private interviews with inmates at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.N. officials said, dampening their hopes of greater U.S. cooperation on human rights issues.

Webmaster's Commentary:

If the US had absolutely nothing to hide, from a standpoint of human rights, and how we are compelled under the Geneva Accords to treat prisoners of war, this would be a non-issue.

Unfortunately, by institutionalizing torture, the US has, for all practical intents and purposes, withdrawn from any human rights accords to which we have ever been a signatory.

This means that any American military or civilian personnel captured by any hostile forces can expect no better treatment than we have given prisoners of war at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo.

For those hoping that promises by the Obama Administration of an eventual Iraq drawdown and this week’s announcement that active duty personnel in the Army would increase by 22,000 would improve the deployment schedule of reservists, Army Reserve Commander Lieutenant General Jack Stultz has a message: don’t get your hopes up.

“I want to be more realistic with them. I don’t predict a drop in our op-tempo,” Lt. Gen. Stultz said in an interview published today in Stars and Stripes. He said the goal was for the average reservist to spend four years home for each year deployed overseas, but reaching that goal “could take five years.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

Translation: reservist's active duty commitments are increasing, not decreasing under this administration's watch.

Internet service providers would have to make it possible for police and intelligence officers to intercept online communications and get personal information about subscribers, under bills tabled Thursday.

"We must ensure that law enforcement has the necessary tools to catch up to the bad guys and ultimately bring them to justice. Twenty-first century technology calls for 21st-century tools," said Justice Minister Rob Nicholson as he announced the new bills with Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan at a news conference in Ottawa.

As one of my readers noted, it’s like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we’ve been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table.

You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony?

The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were “1984” and “Animal Farm.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

That this capability of remote deletion has been built into the Kindle raises a very important question of what other remote access and alteration functions are built into other personal electronic devices without our knowledge and consent.

In a lame attempt to save his hide and stay out of prison for allegedly threatening to kill federal judges, the racist talk show host Hal Turner has admitted in court that he is an FBI informant, the ChicagoBreakingNewsCenter reports today.

The last time the government embarked on a major vaccine campaign against a new swine flu, thousands filed claims contending they suffered side effects from the shots. This time, the government has already taken steps to head that off.

Vaccine makers and federal officials will be immune from lawsuits that result from any new swine flu vaccine, under a document signed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, government health officials said Friday.

The last time the government embarked on a major vaccine campaign against a new swine flu, thousands filed claims contending they suffered side effects from the shots. This time, the government has already taken steps to head that off.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Unflipping believable.

If, in fact, the new vaccines are "rolled out" this fall (and remember: we're just about at the end of July right now), there is absolutely no time to do the normal protocol of clinical trials to insure that there is no danger to humans from this vaccine.

It can't happen.

Computer models are simply just that, and can rarely effectively predict just how certain people may react negatively to a specific vaccine.

Please remember that, for both yourselves and your kids, your family, when evaluating whether or not to receive this immunization, if personal choice in this issue is not countermanded by a Presidential Executive Order.

Kent Police set a new legal precedent last week, as they arrested a photographer on the unusual grounds of “being too tall”.

This is just the latest in a long line of PR disasters that have dogged police forces over the last 12 months, with tourists, schoolboys and passers-by all subject to arrest for the heinous offence of pursuing their hobby. Each incident is followed by much police hand-wringing, and statements to the effect that these are one-offs: the fault of over-zealous individual officers.

In other words, photography on its own is not suspicious behaviour: police suspicions need to be grounded in other evidence, and it is not reasonable to throw a blanket suspicion over the activities of all photographers.

Update

Kent police has supplied us with the following statement, giving its take on the incident:

Assistant Chief Constable Allyn Thomas said: "Our officers are extremely vigilant and their primary concern is always the safety of the public.

"At the time of this incident, a police officer responded to a report concerning a man who was taking photographs of buildings and people in Chatham town centre. When challenged by the police officer the man refused to give any personal details which it was thought was suspicious.

"As a result, he was arrested and asked to wait in a police vehicle while his details were checked. He was released a short time later after these details had been properly verified, and no further action has been taken.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Memo to the current government of the UK: my travel dollars will definitely not be spent in a police state while on holiday, thank you very much.

Why should one want to travel or live in a country which has gone off the deep end of "Code Napoleon" law, where every tourist (or even a UK resident) is considered guilty until proven innocent?!?!?

Southern New Zealand has moved slightly closer to the east coast of neighboring Australia as a result of a massive earthquake last week off the country's South Island, a scientist said Wednesday.

The magnitude 7.8 quake, centered in the ocean near ResolutionIsland in the country's Fiordland region, twisted South Island out of shape and moved its southern tip 12 inches (30 centimeters) closer to Australia, seismologist Ken Gledhill said.

There's a growing chorus of calls to send astronauts to Mars rather than the moon, but critics point out that such trips would be long and gruelling, taking about six months to reach the Red Planet. But now, researchers are testing a powerful new ion engine that could one day shorten the journey to just 39 days.

Peltier was charged more than a third of a century ago with the murder of two FBI agents. The circumstances of the prosecution, and the legal history of the case, involve thousands of pages of missing evidence, compromised witnesses and procedures so twisted as to stagger the imagination and leave any sense of fair play and reasonable jurisprudence buried in the dust.

Through it all, Peltier has maintained his dignity and strength with astonishing grace. He will be 65 years old in September, having spent more than half his life behind bars. His body is wracked with prison-related ailments. He has great grandchildren he has never seen.

A participant in the American Indian Movement, Peltier went to assist the Oglala Lakota people on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the mid-70s where a tragic shoot-out occurred on June 26, 1975. Accused of the murder of two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Peltier fled to Canada believing he would never receive a fair trial in the United States.

On February 6, 1976, Peltier was apprehended. The FBI knowingly presented the Canadian court with fraudulent affidavits, and Peltier was returned to the U.S. for trial.

Key witnesses were banned from testifying about FBI misconduct & testimony about the conditions and atmosphere on the Pine Ridge Reservation at the time of the shoot-out was severely restricted. Important evidence, such as conflicting ballistics reports, was ruled inadmissible. Still, the U.S. Prosecutor failed to produce a single witness who could identify Peltier as the shooter. Instead, the government tied a bullet casing found near the bodies of their agents to the alleged murder weapon, arguing that this gun had been the only one of its kind used during the shootout, and that it had belonged to Peltier.

Later, Mr. Peltier’s attorneys uncovered, in the FBI’s own documents, that more than one weapon of the type attributed to Peltier had been present at the scene and the FBI had intentionally concealed a ballistics report that showed the shell casing could not have come from the alleged murder weapon. Other troubling information emerged: the agents undoubtedly followed a red pickup truck onto the land where the shoot-out took place, not the red and white van driven by Peltier; and compelling evidence against several other suspects existed and was concealed.

At the time, however, the jury was unaware of these facts. Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. He is currently imprisoned at the U.S. Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

-----------------------------

Back in 1976, most Americans were still unaware of the degree to which the FBI fabricates evidence, even in the wake of the COINTELPRO hearings in Congress. Today, looking back at the FBI's long run of exposed lies and deceptions, it is far easier to understand what happened to Peltier and how easily it can be made to happen to any of us.

I hope for the best in today's parole hearings. But ours is a government that does not tolerate embarrassments, and I expect Peltier will be treated the same way as the torture victims of Guantanamo; be kept out of sight for the rest of his life.

1. The FBI was advised of this organ traffcikingring SEVEN YEARS AGO by a totally credible source(a university professor) and it's MUCH larger thana single potential transaction.

2. Law enforcement in Brazil and South Africa actedimmediately on the information and went after the criminals.

3. This was not just organ dealing. It was organstealing. Impoverished people were flown in andtold if they didn't go through with the deal, they'dbe shot. Some had no idea the details of what they'dagreed to.

Organs were "bought" for $10,000 and re-sold for$150,000 and more.

It took the FBI SEVEN YEARS to get themselves in gearand get an indictment.

The mayors of three New Jersey cities, two state legislators and several rabbis were among more than 40 people arrested Thursday in a sweeping corruption investigation that began as a probe into an international money laundering ring that trafficked in goods as diverse as human organs and fake designer handbags.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the investigation initially focused, with the help of the cooperating witness, on the money laundering network that operated between Brooklyn, Deal, N.J. and Israel. The network is alleged to have laundered tens of millions of dollars through charities controlled by rabbis in New York and New Jersey.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said he has heard of the story but knows nothing of kidneys being sold by Israelis.

Although the best-case scenario is that these unfortunate people have, in fact, been relocated to other areas, the spokesman ended the interview on a chilling note. He said with federal camps and a high demand for any usable body parts by the lucrative transplant industry, he feared the worst may have befallen some of DC's "invisible residents."

Webmaster's Commentary:

Relinked in light of today's arrests of NJ politicians and Rabbis involved in (among other things) black market organ dealing.

Israeli occupation forces not only kill Palestinian children but they also mutilate their bodies, and extract vital organs to use them as “spare parts”, Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat said in a televised interview Sunday.

New Jersey top government officials and religious leaders, according to MSNBC, have been arrested in connection with a supposed "major corruption and international money-laundering conspiracy." Reportedly it was also discovered that many were involved in a black market organ ring.

Women from the former Soviet Union and China are still being trafficked across the border with Egypt into Israel for forced prostitution by organized criminal groups.

According to local NGOs, such as Isha L'iash and Moked, each year several hundred women in Israel - many of them foreigners - are trafficked within the country for commercial sexual exploitation, according to the report.

An Israeli organ trafficking ring which was smashed in South Africa last year has shifted its operations to China, according to a report in the New York Times. A 52-year-old Tel Aviv man, Ilan Peri, is alleged to have organised at least 100 kidney transplants for Israelis. The Times profiled the case of an American woman from Brooklyn and a Brazilian man from the impoverished city of Recife in Durban. She paid brokers US$60,000 (a special discount because of family ties) and he received $6,000 from them. The operation was performed at St Augustine's Hospital in Durban. This is owned by a private health care chain, Netcare, which boasts that it aims "to uphold South Africa's reputation as 'the transplant capital of the world'".

A leading Israeli doctor and medical ethicist has called for the prosecution of doctors responsible for thousands of unauthorised and often illegal experiments on small children and geriatric and psychiatric patients in Israeli hospitals.

An investigation by the government watchdog, the state comptroller, has revealed that researchers in 10 public hospitals administered drugs, carried out unauthorised genetic testing or undertook painful surgery on patients unable to give informed consent or without obtaining health ministry approval.

The U.N. team conducting an inquiry into the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto will not seek to name culprits, the commission's head said Friday, lowering expectations from the outset.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Translation: the UN knows the assassination was an inside job, precisely who ordered the hit and why, but doesn't want to "embarrass" the perps.

In a curt missive issued by the Baghdad Operations Command on July 2 — the day after Iraqis celebrated the withdrawal of U.S. troops to bases outside city centers — Iraq's top commanders told their U.S. counterparts to "stop all joint patrols" in Baghdad. It said U.S. resupply convoys could travel only at night and ordered the Americans to "notify us immediately of any violations of the agreement."

Webmaster's Commentary:

Translation; the Iraqi people want their country back, thank you very much.

And remember Cheney's claim that it would be the Iraqi oil which would defer the entire costs of the US military misadventure in Iraq?

Just one more lie in a sea of lies used to justify the "neutralization" of Iraq for Israel, which considered Iraq one of its "existential threats" in the region.

Nearly a month after American troops officially withdrew from urban areas in Iraq, they are quietly going back in again, patrolling the streets of towns and cities where, despite improvements in security, violence remains an everyday occurrence.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Dear Mr. President

You campaigned on a promise to end the wars and bring our kids home.

If you cannot or will not keep that promise, kindly resign in favor of someone who will.

Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, ordered American ground troops two weeks ago to avoid calling in airstrikes if civilian lives are at risk, in an effort to avoid casualties and to show the local population that U.S. forces are here to protect them.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Memo to Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal: the Afghan people are not stupid.

They understand full well that the American and NATO presence in Afghanistan has absolutely nothing to do with "protecting" the people of Afghanistan: it is about "pacifying" the Afghan people to the degree necessary to install the pipelines for the oil companies, and protect the drug trade, from which so many profit.

Notice that the attempts at eradication of the opium poppy crop have been abandoned.

"Convinced that razing the cash crop grown by dirt-poor Afghan farmers is costing badly needed friends along the front lines of the fight against Taliban-led insurgents, U.S. authorities say they are all but abandoning the Bush-era policy of destroying drug crops."

So, there you have it, General McChrystal: the Afghan people know precisely why the US and NATO troops are in Afghanistan. And so, by the way, do the American people.

Attacks by US warplanes this week killed up to six Afghan civilians, including a four-year-old girl, and left another 16 wounded. The incidents in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province have again underscored the grim human cost of the military escalation ordered by the Obama administration.

Webmaster's Commentary:

It appears that despite protestations to the contrary by General Mc Chrystal, the Obama doctrine, when it comes to Afghan civilians is that of the Papal Legate at the siege of Montsegur against the Cathars.

When notified that there were women and children among the men, the Legate gave the order: "Kill them all: God will find his own".

Ria Novosti reported on Friday that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is planning to visit Tel Aviv within the next two weeks to discuss a whole range of international issues, including Tehran's nuclear case, in secret meetings with the Netanyahu government.

US Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, will reportedly accompany Gates.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Translation: the US is getting its marching orders from Tel Aviv on Iran.

It appears that there may well be a military strike against Iran, sooner rather than later.

And what is so mind-melting in this entire scenario is, Iran has done absolutely nothing wrong.

As a signatory to the NPT (which Israel, which has nuclear weapons is not), Iran is perfectly within its right to use nuclear energy peacefully, as in the building of its power station.

The IAEA has found absolutely zero evidence that Iran is enriching uranium to the point of weapons-grade development; only to the level necessary to fuel a power plant, which is far lower than is necessary for a nuclear weapon.

But just as in the case of Iraq and the IAEA (remember the hatchet job done on Hans Blix, when he declared that there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq?), the truth has absolutely nothing to do with the outcome which appears to be moving forward.

I would like to hope that some adults in the room in Tel Aviv, Washington, (and Moscow, as Iran is Russia's 7th largest trading partner)will see yet another military misadventure against Iran as the folly it truly is.

Unfortunately, there are some in the corridors of power in DC who see yet another war the only way to get the American economy out of the tailspin it's in, and give the American people something else to focus on other than the economic misery this country's leadership has created in the handling of the US economy.

Washington says Iran’s nuclear program is a threat to both Israel and the United States, reaffirming its ‘unbreakable bond’ with Tel Aviv.

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made the comments in a joint news conference with the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem (Al-Quds).

Webmaster's Commentary:

Translation: Barak and Netanyahu got everything they wanted from this meeting, including a "green light" for an attack against Iran after a specific deadline has passed in September.

Israel and the US knows that they will get very little traction at the UN, because Russia will veto more sanctions. Russia is Iran's 7th largest trading partner.

Iran is doing absolutely nothing wrong; under the NPT, to which they are a signatory, they have every right to use nuclear energy peacefully, i.e., the building of a power station.

The IAEA's reports on the inspections of this facility consistently indicate absolutely no enrichment beyond that which is needed to fuel a power station, and no misuse of nuclear materials.

The war drums are beating every more loudly, in the concerted "big lie" campaign to garner public US support for an attack against Iran; but it is not working this time (particularly after the pack of lies sold to the American people upon which the invasion and occupation of Iraq was based)

With the US Defence Secretary standing at his side, Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defence Minister, today warned Iran that a military strike on its nuclear facilities was still an option.

“We clearly believe that no option should be removed from the table. This is our policy. We mean it. We recommend to others to take the same position but we cannot dictate it to anyone,” Mr Barak said at a press conference with Robert Gates in Jerusalem.

Webmaster's Commentary:

It appears that Obama and Gates have "greenlit" a potential Israeli attack against Iran, after what was an agreed-upon time-table, and with the diplomatic process chock full pre-conditions Iran could never accept.

There's only one slight, minor, tiny problem with this potential attack. Russian leadership has stated to both Israel and the US that such an attack will lead to WWIII.

A chilling report circulating in the Kremlin today states that President Medvedev and Chinese President Hu have issued an “urgent warning” to the United States that says if the Americans allow an Israeli nuclear attack upon Iran, “World War will be our response”.

Israel hardened its insistence Monday that it would do anything it felt necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, just the ultimatum the United States hoped not to hear as it tried to nudge Iran to the bargaining table.

Webmaster's Commentary:

One more time.

Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.

Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. The available evidence shows that they stopped their fledgling program in 2003.

What Iran is building is a nuclear power station, which they are legally allowed to do under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which both Iran and the United States have signed. Under article IV of the NNPT the United States is obligated to assist Iran in building their power station.

Even if Iran had a nuclear weapon they are not a threat either to the United States, which has thousands of warheads, or to Israel, which has at least 200.

Iran has not invaded anyone for 200 years.

In contrast ...

Israel has nuclear warheads, which they build in a no-longer-secret lab underneath the Dimona Reactor. Israel has never signed the NNPT and does not permit inspections of its facilities by the IAEA. Israel is constantly invading their neighbors.

Israel made the same accusations about Iraq just prior to bombing the power station at Osirik. Subsequent inspections following the 2003 invasion confirmed there was no clandestine weapons factory at the site. Israel's claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction were likewise totally false.

"We cannot raise the nuclear issue without speaking of an international disarmament. We cannot speak of a Middle East without nuclear weapons while making no words about the more than 200 nuclear warheads of the Zionist regime [Israel]," added the spokesman.

The claim that there is no evidence that the CIA directly supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda is laughable, when in the same sentence it is explained exactly how they did it indirectly through Pakistan. The denial is the admission of guilt, how’s that for double-think?

More British and American troops will die in Afghanistan, but the war against the Taliban is in the national interests of both countries, the US vice-president, Joe Biden, said today.

Speaking in the deadliest month for British troops since the US-led invasion in 2001, Biden insisted that the current offensive against the Taliban in Helmand province was worth the effort and was a "prerequisite" to get the country ready for presidential elections next month.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Memo to VP Biden: stop lying to the American people, and to the long-suffering Afghans.

The purpose of this war of aggression is two-fold; to "pacify" the Afghan people so that the pipelines can be installed, and to protect the opium crops.

And before anyone starts screaming about how dare I suggest that our kids are dying to protect the drugs and drug dealers, consider this.

"In the book ''Bin Laden, la verite interdite'' (''Bin Laden, the forbidden truth''), that appeared in Paris on Wednesday, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest over the obstruction. "

"They affirm that until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime ''as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia'', from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. "

But, confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept U.S. conditions, ''this rationale of energy security changed into a military one'', the authors claim."

Remember what we were getting force-fed on all the corporate news feeds in August, 2001?!?!

Gary Condit and Chandra Levy, 24/7, while the US government was planning the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

Apparently, the price to be paid in blood and money to pursue this military misadventure was considered a "bargain" by the Bush administration, relative to what the Taliban were asking for the pipeline rights.

Tell that to the parents, wives, or children of our soldiers who continue to come home, dead, in metal boxes, or catastrophically physically and/or mentally damaged in ways from which they will never recover.

I couldn't believe my ears, but just minutes ago on "America's News HQ," guest pundit Ralph Peters suggested something to the effect that the Taliban should "save us the headache" and execute captured 23 year-old American soldier Bowe Bergdahl, because "it looks like" Bergdahl deserted his unit. While prefacing his comments by stressing that a military decision should not be made until all of the facts surrounding Bergdahl's capture are determined, Peters then ignored his own advice and encouraged the Taliban to kill this young man. Fox News' Julie Banderas was visibly shocked at the words coming out of Peters' mouth, but did not challenge any of his statements before awkwardly ending the segment.

Webmaster's Commentary:

The war hawks need a dead (preferably tortured) bloody body to try to whip up American support for escalating the war in Afghanistan.

On the morning of 17 July, a Palestinian family from the village of At-Tuwani discovered that their newly constructed house was destroyed during the previous night. In addition, the family discovered an olive tree located near the new house cut in half. The family believes that Israel settlers from the Ma'on settlement and Havot Ma'on outpost are responsible for the vandalism. Despite being threatened by both settlers and officers from the Israel military District Coordinator (DCO), the family plans to rebuild the house.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Sometimes, simply surviving is the greatest act of defiance against an illegal and immoral occupation of Palestinian lands.

Israeli forces made their deepest incursion into the Gaza Strip in months near Beit Hanoun, penetrating 500 meters past the buffer zone to burn 150 dunums of land.

The agricultural field of wheat and barley crops belonging to the Shabat family was destroyed after an Israeli militarized vehicle left the Erez District Coordination Office (DCO) and drove into the Strip, stopping only to set the land on fire. Dry weather meant the crops burned quickly, consuming the much needed grains.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Every American tax dollar which goes to support Israel goes to support precisely this kind of Israeli behavior against Palestinians.

We're talking about food here - food for a starving population which only gets its siege lifted rarely(very temporarily, as with the Viva Palestina Convoy, which wound up having to hand-carry supplies because aid trucks were not permitted into Gaza)due to international public outrage.

That outrage cannot be allowed to die. Every possible Israeli and US official should be contacted (politely) and told that siege against Gaza must stop, period, end of discussion.

Palestinian sources reported Wednesday that a resident of the West Bank village of Naalin was arrested upon returning from Geneva, where he testified before a UN committee charged with investigating the IDF offensive in Gaza earlier this year.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This man was arrested for his perceived "crime" by the Israelis of telling the truth about what happened during the Gaza offensive.

This arrest and detention is also calculated to have a chilling effect on any other Palestinian who would dare tell the truth to an international fact-finding body.

An already difficult situation following 40 years of occupation became significantly worse in June 2007 when Israel imposed a severe blockade following the takeover of Gaza by Hamas.

The objective indicators are sobering. Even before the recent war nearly 80 percent of Gaza residents were living below the official poverty line, less that $2.30 per day, according to the World Bank.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This is why it is so critically important to support any humanitarian aid going to Gaza, and letting the Israeli government know, in no uncertain terms, that not allowing the aid through is making them look like a bunch of knuckleheads.

Israel on Sunday rejected a United States demand to stop a building project in annexed east Jerusalem, in the latest dispute between the close allies over the prickly issue of Jewish settlements.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Memo to President Obama: what did I tell you, Mr. President?!?

Netanyahu has decided that his response to the request to halt this settlement is going to be to spit in your face, and tell you it's raining.

Of course, no matter how intently you're spat upon, you'll never stop sending those checks to Israel, right?!?

No matter how deeply Israel is publicly humiliating you and your administration, you'll just keep on sending those checks, and continuing to validate bad behavior on the part of the Israeli administration, right?!?

Israel's ambassador in Washington Michael Oren was summoned to the State Department at the end of last week over the project, which aims to build housing units in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, the official said on condition of anonymity, confirming earlier media reports.

Webmaster's Commentary:

At this point, if in fact there ever is a Palestinian state, with consistent Israeli encroachments on Palestinian lands, the state of Palestine won't be much larger than a postage stamp.

And this US posturing about settlements will win absolutely no concessions from Netanyahu.

The only thing Israel will understand will be when the checks, funded with your tax dollars stop until the settlements stop.

Israeli warships have deployed to the Red Sea for what has been described as a rehearsal for a possible attack on Iran.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"IRAN IS THE THREAT! IRAN IS THE THREAT! IRAN IS THE THREAT! IRAN IS THE THREAT! IRAN IS THE THREAT! IRAN IS THE THREAT! IRAN IS THE THREAT! IRAN IS THE THREAT! IRAN IS THE THREAT! IRAN IS THE THREAT!"

Intelligence Minster Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i said Israeli officials met with the terrorist Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) to execute the plan, according to a report by the semi official Fars News Agency.

"The Zionist regime had met with the MKO on the sidelines of the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting in Egypt and in Paris to assassinate Mr. Ahmadinejad," Mohseni-Ejeie was quoted as saying on Friday.

The terrorist group had, however, set conditions for carrying out the assassination, he added. "They had asked that the US and the West remove their name from their blacklists."

Just a year and a few days after Israeli Military personnel beat, almost to death, Mohammed Omer on his return to Gaza, another beating took place. This time, also to a journalist involved in one of the Humanitarian Convoys bringing aid to the people living there.

There are 345 Palestinian children in Israeli prisons where physical and psychological torture are both practiced.

The figures come as part of a report by prison expert Abdel Nasser Ferwana issued today that says children constitute 3.6 percent of the total number of Palestinian political prisoners. "The future of these children are at risk and face harsh torture and degrading treatment," he said. "Children are subjected to systematic violations and the continual deprivation of their most basic rights, among them sickness without medical care."

Webmaster's Commentary:

One has to wonder if the US didn't rip a page from the Israeli torture if Palestinian kids.

And withholding medical care has to be characterized as a component of Israel's own "final solution" for sick Palestinian kids in their jails.

While delivering the stop work orders, a member of the DCO struck a small child and an Israeli soldier shoved a Palestinian civilian to the ground. They also arrested a protesting Palestinian man who was supposedly charged with “threatening soldiers” and remains in the Kiryat Arba police station.

Webmaster's Commentary:

WOW, the IDF is sooooo butch, smacking kids and shoving unarmed Palestinians to the ground to prove it!

And remember: every one of your taxpayer dollars sent in military and/or financial aid to Israel supports precisely this kind of behavior against Palestinians.

The Pope and the cardinals of the Vatican help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to wipe out Jews, according to a booklet being distributed to Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

Officials encouraging the booklet's distribution include senior officers, such as Lt. Col. Tamir Shalom, the commander of the Nahshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Unflipping believable.

This demonization of Arabs, wrapped around the "big lie" technique, is something you'd expect from the old USSR's playbook.

This is almost an incitement and an encouragement for every member of the IDF to go out and kill every Arab they can find, with the justification that "God wills it!"

According to the watchdog overseeing the federal government’s financial bailout program, the full exposure since 2007 amounts to a whopping $23.7 trillion dollars, or $80,000 for every American citizen.

A top investment advisor, Harry Schultz - who was MarketWatch's Peter Brimelow pick for financial newsletter of the Year in 2008 - is now claiming:

Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But not pound sterling. Inside the State Dept., there is a sense of sadness and foreboding that 'something' is about to happen ... within 180 days, but could be 120-150 days.

Not only are the new high tech/high speed transactionsgiving big banks an overwhelming trading advantageover retail investors, they're also creatinga false impression about the health of the stockmarket.

The chancellor's forecasts for economic growth were blown out of the water official figures revealed Britain's economy contracted by a record 5.6% over the last year as output fell for a fifth straight quarter.

Dashing hopes that the steepest decline in growth since the 1930s might be nearing an end, the Office for National Statistics said gross domestic product – the total value of goods and services in the economy – fell by 0.8% in the three months to June. The size of the drop surprised the City, which had expected only a 0.3% decline following recent signs of a pickup in the housing market and strong growth in high street spending.

The bankruptcy of General Motors, and the organization of a “new” auto company in its place, is being carried out at the expense of tens of thousands of active and retired auto workers, along with dealerships, other small businesses, and entire communities.

It is a ruthless Wall Street operation, presided over by the Obama administration, that will benefit only the corporate elite. Characteristically, a White House statement July 15 declared that it “strongly opposes” a measure in Congress pressing GM and Chrysler to restore the several thousand dealerships closed by the auto companies’ bankruptcies.

Citigroup (C) is considering paying a $100 million bonus -- to one guy.

This is the same Citigroup that received $45 billion in bailout money. The same Citigroup that will soon be 34% owned by the U.S. government. The same Citigroup that has lost 95% of its share value since 2007.

Senior administration officials are considering the creation of a single agency to regulate the banking industry, replacing a patchwork of agencies that failed to prevent banks from falling into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, sources said.

Webmaster's Commentary:

That is NOT what happened.

Congress, yes, CONGRESS repealed the Glass Steagall act in 1999. This was a law passed in the wake of the great depression to prevent banks and brokerage companies from entering each others' businesses, which created a situation which encouraged runaway speculation.

So it does not matter what new agency is created, because somewhere down the road the bankers will lobby Congress to let loose the chains again and create the same situation all over again.

The only real fix is to close the Federal Reserve and return control of the money supply to the US Treasury Department.

The key to their success, said Quigley, was that the international bankers would control and manipulate the money system of a nation while letting it appear to be controlled by the government. The statement echoed one made in the eighteenth century by the patriarch of what would become the most powerful banking dynasty in the world. Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild famously said in 1791:

“Allow me to issue and control a nation’s currency, and I care not who makes its laws.”

Today’s crisis represents "the bursting of the huge 25-year, almost $50 trillion debt bubble that helped underwrite the hijacking of the US economy by a rabid financial sector…" It’s realigning global power with America losing its economic leadership won in WW II.

"The ignominy deserved by Wall Street after 1929-1933 is peanuts compared with the opprobrium the US financial sector and its political and regulatory allies deserve this time." Financialized America radically transformed the country, now "doubly staggering because of the crushing burden of its collapse."

Webmaster's Commentary:

We have not seen even the beginnings of an outpouring of public rage concerning what has been done to We the People by these knuckleheads.

The question is, how that rage is likely to play out, and whether it leads to an organized (and hopefully, peaceful) movement dedicated to throwing the liars out of government, no matter which side of the isle they come from in Congress.

All the federal government’s offensive and defensive mechanisms are being put in place while the lowly sheep await the slaughter. More economic tensions with more unemployment along with over-zealous police thugs bent on revenue creation; what will be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back? What will it take before civil unrest is not just discussed on talk shows, but is evident in the streets of America? How much unrest will be tolerated by the now fully armed military-type police before they become physical?

Webmaster's Commentary:

Look at how Israel treats the Palestinians.

That is Israel's future for Americans. It is happening right now. Look at Obama's cabinet; hell, look at the White House Seder! The Zionification of the United States in well underway.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been described as one of the enforcers of globalization. Nations who receive IMF assistance are often forced to surrender more sovereignty and further open up their borders to international banks and multinational corporations. Much of their wealth is then sucked dry by foreign predators with its resources and population essentially becoming the collateral for such financial aid. As a result of the global economic crisis, many more nations are having to turn to the IMF for help. At the recent G-20 Summit in London, the IMF’s role was expanded and its powers enhanced. There was little mention of its failed policies and its less then stellar record of effectively promoting development and democracy around the world.

Russia may switch some of its reserves from U.S. Treasuries to International Monetary Fund bonds, the central bank said today. The comment drove Treasuries and the dollar lower.

Alexei Ulyukayev, first deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank, said some reserves may be moved from Treasuries into IMF debt, reiterating comments made last month by Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. Ulyukayev’s remarks were confirmed by a Bank Rossii official who declined to be named, citing bank policy.

Treasuries fell, pushing 10-year yields toward the highest level in seven months, in response to Ulyukayev’s statement. The dollar fell against the euro on speculation that Russia will reduce its holdings of U.S. debt.

Brazil is looking to buy $10 billion in IMF bonds, Finance Minister Guido Mantega said on Wednesday, joining China and Russia in seeking to use the new instruments to diversify dollar-heavy currency reserves.

"This support is important to help end the international financial crisis," Mantega said, adding that a trade surplus and $204 billion in reserves has positioned Brazil to help the International Monetary Fund boost lending to other emerging economies.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Looking at the current state of the US dollar and the US economy, who can blame these countries for wanting to diversify away from dollar-heavy financial portfolios??

The US dollar is not Russia’s basic reserve currency anymore. The euro-based share of reserve assets of Russia’s Central Bank increased to the level of 47.5 percent as of January 1, 2009 and exceeded the investments in dollar assets, which made up 41.5 percent, The Vedomosti newspaper wrote.

Brazil, Russia, India and China are considering buying each other’s bonds and swapping currencies to lessen dependence on the U.S. dollar, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s top economic adviser said.

Medvedev is hosting back-to-back summits of developing economies in Yekaterinburg as he seeks to lessen the world economy’s dependence on the U.S. dollar. Medvedev will hold talks later today with Chinese President Hu Jintao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Looking at the condition of both the US economy and the US dollar, who can blame these countries for wanting to move in a positive direction out of the US dollar?

Medvedev told a regional summit Tuesday that the creation of new reserve currencies in addition to the dollar is needed to stabilize global finances.

Medvedev has made the proposal before. It reflects both the Kremlin's push for greater international clout and a concern shared by other countries that soaring U.S. budget deficits could spur inflation and weaken the dollar.

Airing it at a summit meeting underlined the challenge to U.S. clout.

Medvedev spoke at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes China and four Central Asian nations.

Returning from China last month, U.S. Congressman Mark Kirk had a bearish take on a high-level visit by American officials.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner claimed the U.S.’s biggest creditor voiced great confidence in its debt. Kirk, an Illinois Republican, came back with the opposite impression.

“China is beginning to cancel Congress’s credit card,” he told Fox News on June 10. It “doesn’t want to lend much more money to the United States and especially is worried about the Fed’s policy of printing money to buy new debt.”

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) told Greta Van Sustern China buying gold and moving away from the FRN$. The reality is that FortKnox is empty and the gold was sold to Cash4Gold. China is now buying enough gold to fill up FortKnox 2x!

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) told Greta Van Sustern China buying gold and moving away from the FRN$. The reality is that FortKnox is empty and the gold was sold to Cash4Gold. China is now buying enough gold to fill up FortKnox 2x!

“Here it is,” Medvedev told reporters today in L’Aquila, Italy, after a summit of the Group of Eight nations. “You can see it and touch it,” reports Bloomberg. “We are discussing both the use of other national currencies, including the ruble, as a reserve currency, as well as supranational currencies,” the Russian leader said at a news conference.

Press images released to the Yahoo photo wire did not show any close up shots of the coin and little was known about it, except that it had been minted in Belgium and bears the words “unity in diversity”.

Greg Palast feels there are some other secret payoffs at work in this bankruptcy selection of winners and losers. "While GM workers are losing [some of] their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders - led by JP Morgan and Citibank - expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion. The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.

The latest increase raises federal obligations to a record $546,668 per household in 2008, according to the USA TODAY analysis. That's quadruple what the average U.S. household owes for all mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other debt combined.

"We have a huge implicit mortgage on every household in America — except, unlike a real mortgage, it's not backed up by a house," says David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general, the government's top auditor.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing to completely eliminate the state’s welfare program for families, medical insurance for low-income children and Cal Grants cash assistance to college and university students.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Watch for riots in California and other states if these kinds of proposal are passed, coupled with the establishment of a "national emergency" to give state and federal authorities sweeping policing powers.

U.S. foreclosure filings surpassed 300,000 for the third straight month in May and may hit a record 1.8 million by the first half of the year, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

A total of 321,480 properties received a default or auction notice or were repossessed last month, up 18 percent from a year earlier, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said today in a statement. One in 398 U.S. households received a filing last month.

Last year the Senate Housing Committee came up with a scheme to support high real estate values in order to protect the assets of institutions that hold mortgage debt. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 provides general fund financed grants to local governments through the Federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP). According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), NSP funds may be used to:

Webmaster's Commentary:

In a nation with a huge homeless population, the US Government plans to start demolishing empty homes, simply to create an artificial shortage and boost housing prices supposedly to protect the value of the mortgages the banks hold.

But the mortgages the banks hold are not valued based on UNsold homes!

The only point of bulldozing empty homes to create an artificial shortage to keep prices up TO PROTECT BANKERS' FUTURE PROFITS!

If homes are cheap, you borrow less and the banks get less interest from you. If the homes are expensive, you have to borrow more money anmd the banks make more interest off of you.

In other words, they are using bulldozers to re-create the housing bubble from a few years ago.

And this will fail because they are artificially inflating housing prices WITHOUT BRINGING BACK THE JOBS THAT ALLOW AMERICANS TO BUY THESE HOMES AT THESE INFLATED PRICES!!!

The recession is hitting home for inmates, too: Some cash-strapped states are taking aim at prison menus.

Georgia prisoners already didn't get lunch on the weekends, and the Department of Corrections recently eliminated the midday meal on Fridays, too. Ohio may drop weekend breakfasts and offer brunch instead. Other states are cutting back on milk and fresh fruit.

Officials say prisoners are still getting enough calories, but family members and critics say the changes could make prisoners irritable and food a valuable commodity, increasing the possibility of violence.

Sadly, millions of investors will likely interpret this as a sign that the U.S. financial sector is once again a viable “profit” play - when the reality is that Wall Street hasn’t learned a single darned thing from the financial crisis and is up to its old tricks once again.

This time around, the biggest U.S. banks - including JPMorgan, BofA, and PNC - will employ an obscure accounting rule to magically transform the “toxic debt” that they obtained from such “zombie banks” as Wachovia Corp., Countrywide Financial Corp., National City Corp., and Washington Mutual Inc. (OTC: WAMUQ) into actual income.

Top House lawmakers had considerable holdings in major financial institutions that took billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts at the end of last year, according to annual financial disclosure reports released yesterday.

From stock holdings to retirement funds to mortgages, more than 20 House leaders and members of the House Financial Services Committee had large personal stakes in the Wall Street powerhouses whose collapse last year led to an unprecedented government intervention in the marketplace. In some instances those lawmakers, like millions of other investors, sold their holdings at steep losses while others retained the stocks at greatly diminished value.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Last September I warned you this was what was going on.

Remember that photo of the House members laughing after they passed that first bailout?

They are laughing to YOU!

Because even though the taxpayers were more than 90% opposed to giving public money to these failing financial dinosaurs, Congress voted their own wallets and looted YOU to save their stock portfolios.

Several members of Congress who oversee the banking industry and bemoaned the industry’s greed actually pocketed cash from investing in or selling the same banks they were rebuking when the market collapsed last year.

At least two members of Congress — an Ohio Democrat and a Florida Republican — invested or cashed out of bank stocks just as the fortunes of those companies fell. Ohio Democrat Charlie Wilson sold between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of Huntington Bancshares stock Nov. 14 — the same day the bank got $1.4 billion in bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

This is the chart they don't want you to see: the purchasing power of the dollar over the past 76 years has declined by 94%. And based on current monetary and fiscal policy, we have at least another 94% to go. The only question is whether this will be achieved in 76 months this time.

As HR 1207 gains momentum and co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, the Federal Reserve is planning to fight the tide calling for an audit of its books by hiring a veteran lobbyist to “manage its relations with Congress,” according to Reuters.

The Fed plans to hire Linda Robertson, who previously worked for now-defunct energy company Enron, as well as the Clinton administration. She is currently head of government, community and public relations at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Robertson “spent eight years in senior positions at the Treasury Department, working for three secretaries: Lloyd Bentsen, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers,” a bio posted on The John Hopkins University website states.

Webmaster's Commentary:

That phrase about the Fed hiring this lady to “manage its relations with Congress,” probably translates into hiring someone who knows precisely where all the congressional "bodies" (both physical and metaphorical) are buried, and how to threaten to exhume them should Congress become less than a friend of the Fed by passing this bill.

We wanted to make sure you were the first to know that your hard work and dedication has resulted in Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill, HR 1207, gaining the support of a majority of the House of Representatives!

Just moments ago, Dr. Paul's congressional office issued a press release announcing that HR 1207 had received its 218th cosponsor, and that the list has now grown to 222!

For the first time in generations, [the Fed is] now threatened with popular rebellion.

During the past year, the Fed has flooded the streets with money--distributing trillions of dollars to banks, financial markets and commercial interests ...

Where did the central bank get all the money it is handing out? Basically, the Fed printed it, out of thin air. That is what central banks do. Who told the Fed governors they could do this? Nobody, really--not Congress or the president. The Federal Reserve Board, alone among government agencies, does not submit its budgets to Congress for authorization and appropriation. It raises its own money, sets its own priorities.

After months of activism and lobbying by Congressman Ron Paul’s supporters, House Resolution 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, will move out of committee to be debated by the full House of Representatives.

In a show of cross-party unity, Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich became the bill’s 218th co-sponsor, pushing it over the threshold for debate in Congress.

Congressman Kucinich, along with Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), announced Tuesday that the House Financial Services Committee will subpoena the Federal Reserve to ascertain the details of the Fed’s agreements with Bank of America in the institution’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

Congressman Paul, in defense of his proposal to audit the bank which controls America’s currency, argues not just for transparency. He wants to close it down.

“Detractors have [...] argued that the Fed must remain immune from the political process, and that that more congressional oversight would distort their very important decisions,” Paul wrote in an editorial titled, ‘Audit the Fed, Then End It!’ “On the contrary, the Federal Reserve is already heavily entrenched in the political process, as the Fed chairman is a political appointee. High-level officials routinely make the rounds between positions at the Fed, member banks, Treasury and back again, taking care of friends and each other along the way.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

I hope Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are wearing their Kevlar undies these days.

Transparency and the Fed do not have any kind of on-going relationship.

The Federal Reserve's balance sheet is so out of whack that the central bank would be shut down if subjected to a conventional audit, Jim Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, told CNBC.

With $45 billion in capital and $2.1 trillion in assets, the central bank would not withstand the scrutiny normally afforded other institutions, Grant said in a live interview.

"If the Fed examiners were set upon the Fed's own documents—unlabeled documents—to pass judgment on the Fed's capacity to survive the difficulties it faces in credit, it would shut this institution down," he said. "The Fed is undercapitalized in a way that Citicorp is undercapitalized."

Webmaster's Commentary:

Except that Citicorp is not allowed to just print up more money when they need it.

After months of activism and lobbying by Congressman Ron Paul’s supporters, House Resolution 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, will move out of committee to be debated by the full House of Representatives.

In a show of cross-party unity, Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich became the bill’s 218th co-sponsor, pushing it over the threshold for debate in Congress.

The bill, which achieved its 222nd co-sponsorship on Thursday, has been in consideration by the House Financial Services Committee since Feb. 26.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This is the top story IMHO. And the Federal Reserve will fight this any way they can even to the point of threatening to crash the system itself rather than allow inspection of how it has swindled the American people all this last century.

“My concern about the legislation is that if the GAO is auditing not only the operational aspects of the programs and the details of the programs but making judgments about our policy decisions would effectively be a takeover of policy by the Congress and a repudiation of the Federal Reserve would be highly destructive to the stability of the financial system, the Dollar and our national economic situation.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

THIS IS WHAT I PREDICTED WAS GOING TO HAPPEN!Bernanke is acting just like a CEO who is suspected of embezzling from his own company and decides to burn the building down before the auditors can look at the books!

The Federal Reserve is NOT your friend. It does NOT provide a service. It is and always has been a scam to transfer wealth from the people to the owners of the Fed and Bernanke's threat to crash the whole system is a giant neon sign on the building flashing "GUILTY AS HELL!"

A Senate amendment based on Congressman Ron Paul’s successful House bill to audit the Federal Reserve was blocked by the Senate yesterday evening on procedural grounds, as Jim DeMint slammed the Fed for refusing to disclose where trillions in bailout funds had gone, while a top Obama administration advisor called for a second “stimulus” package to be prepared.

Republican Senator DeMint had attempted to get a provision attached to the 2010 spending bill that would have removed restrictions on auditing the Fed’s discount window operations, funding facilities, open market operations and agreements with foreign central banks and governments.

However, the amendment was blocked by Senate authorities who claimed that it violated rules for provisions attached to spending bills.

A proposal from a long-time congressional foe of the Federal Reserve that could give lawmakers sway over monetary policy has won the support of a majority in the House of Representatives, alarming officials at the U.S. central bank.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Clipping the wings is not enough. If you took away all the Federal Reserve's money and power and left them with just the ability to create money out of thin air, in a dozen years they would have bought and bribed back all they have lost.

It is time to revoke their charter in the best spirit of Andrew Jackson and return the issuing of the public currency to the government, as defined in the Constitution and championed by Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy.

The Federal Reserve warned yesterday that a congressional threat to curtail its independence would destabilise markets and raise the cost of servicing US debt for "current and future generations".

Ron Paul, the Texas Republican, has gathered the support of a majority of the House of Representatives for a bill that would audit the Fed's monetary policy decisions. He told a congressional hearing he wanted the power to prevent the central bank being "secret and clandestine and serving special interests".

There have now been two clear warnings that the privately owned Federal Reserve bank will intentionally crash the eoncomy before it allows an audit.

Such a threat is a clear and present danger to the security of the United States of America.

To protect the safety and security of the American people President Obama MUST immediately act to revoke the charter of the Federal Reserve Bank and return the creation of the public currency to the US Government, as defined in the Constitution and Executive Order 11110 signed by President John F. Kennedy.

The Federal Reserve is already inflating the Federal Reserve Notes to the point of worthlessness. The mechanism to restore creation of legal tender by the US Treasury must be established now to minimize disruption when the Federal Reserve is shut down.

The final plan due to be released on Wednesday -- which originally aimed to streamline and consolidate banking and securities regulation in one or two agencies -- now is expected to sidestep most jurisdictional disputes and simply impose across the board standards to be applied by all financial regulators, according to administration and industry sources.

In reaching across the aisle for Republican support – and no doubt future campaign contributions from the financial sector Pres. Obama is morphing into Joe Lieberman. There also is a touch of Boris Yeltsin in his sponsorship of a financial “reform” ominously similar to what advisor Larry Summers backed in Russia – relinquishing government power to a banking elite. The Financial Regulatory Reform proposal promotes Wall Street’s “product,” debt creation, at the expense of the economy at large, and lets financial chieftains continue to self-regulate the debt industry – and to keep scot-free all their gains from the past decade’s worth of fraudulent lending.

President Obama’s plan to give the privately-owned and unaccountable Federal Reserve complete regulatory oversight across the entire U.S. economy, which is likely to be enacted before the end of the year, will officially herald the beginning of a new form of government in the United States - an ultra-powerful banking dictatorship controlled by a small gaggle of shadowy and corrupt elitists.

The new rules would see the Fed given the authority to “regulate” any company whose activity it believes could threaten the economy and the markets.

This goes a step further than the centrally planned economies of the Soviet Union or Communist China, in that the Federal Reserve is not even accountable to the U.S. government, it is a private entity that according to former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, is accountable to nobody but the banking families that own it.

Obama’s regulatory “reform” plan is nothing less than a green light for the complete and total takeover of the United States by a private banking cartel that will usurp the power of existing regulatory bodies, who are now being blamed for the financial crisis in order that their status can be abolished and their roles handed over to the all-powerful Fed.

In other words, the Fed, which is already totally unaccountable to Congress, is to be placed in complete control of the entirety of the U.S. financial system, to do as it wishes without repercussion.

As the LA Times reports, the government, in conjunction with the private Federal Reserve, would effectively have the clout to simply seize and take over any company it desires.

However, as former chairman Alan Greenspan has most recently pointed out, given that the Fed is an independent entity, and therefore accountable to no one, it will have the power to simply reject and overrule any advice it is offered.

How simultaneously dangerous and ridiculous it is that the Federal Reserve is given more authority to oversee the economy. This is the same privately run entity that refused to comply with congressional demands for transparency and disclose the destination of trillions dollars in bailout funds. It is the same privately owned entity that has withheld internal memos, in spite of freedom of information act requests. It is the same private entity, run for the most part by European banking elites, that has arrogantly refused to tell Senators and Congressmen which banks were in receipt of government loans.

My Disclaimer:

I present this information in my capacity as a human being, under Common Law, exercising my fundamental God given rights and freedoms. This information represents my private thoughts and beliefs and has been compiled and expressed for educational purposes only. In no way should it be construed as either legal or financial advice. If anyone feels a need to determine the accuracy of this information and the effectiveness of apply any of it, I strongly recommend consulting a competent expert on this subject matter.

Here's a Clue:Look the one place "They" never talk about.Look to your heart, as your competent expert lies within."Seek and you shall find."